Editor’s Letter

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December’s theme is OMENS. For details on how to send us your work, please read our Submit page. ✴

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Rookie is an online magazine and book series for teenagers. Each month, a different editorial theme drives the writing, photography, and artwork that we publish. Learn more about us here, and find out how to submit your work here!

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Upsettingly perky infomercial voice: Are you ever lonely? Do you suffer from the human condition? When you’re told to just “be yourself,” are you ever like, But that’s the problem? That I am already me, and will be, no matter what, and that this remains true even when I am far away from whatever place I call home? When such a sensation strikes your clammy bod, does it make you want to hit “fast-forward” on the excruciatingly slow bloating and subsequent rotting away of your strange, dull life?

That such a space oddity as David Bowie could have offered a sense of belonging to so many people speaks to how common this alien feeling really is. But aside from the outcast spirit found in his art direction, style, and literal references to outer space, he made me more OK with the secret stupidity of simply being alive—never mind being weird or different—by finding ways to transcend his own mortal limits. Maybe this is why his death has been so difficult to comprehend, as though it were only time for another reincarnation.

In December’s theme, we discussed how “Be Yourself” can feel confining if it means constantly measuring your impulses against an unchanging idea of who you are. “There’s no definitive David Bowie,” he once said, and it’s never important as a listener or viewer whether he was being himself or not: only that this person is doing this thing, here, now. A world of possibilities opens up when you don’t concern yourself with familiar markers of authenticity, but embrace the fact that we’re never not a simulacrum. Shift your attention from that sliding scale of what seems “organic” to the many spectrums we dash across when we dress up, put on, and fake it. They overlap and intersect, and colors we once recognized mix to form new ones. Our palette becomes holographic, infinite; a wonderful place to start from in your next transition, transmission.

February’s theme is “On Display,” and it’s about all the ways that changes on your outsides can propel changes on the inside. Concern with appearance is often dismissed as frivolous, but Bowie knew more than anyone that self-actualization is psychosomatic: he cultivated the sound and vision of Starman, a rock ’n’ roll star, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke, and then he became them. His live performances show the kind of abandon that can only take place on a stage otherwise controlled. We already spend so much time in our heads, in memories, expectations, and fictions. What if carving out a literal space to engage with the demands of these hyperrealities—through dress, or performance, or an online identity—is what can allow you to welcome spontaneity? Being aware of what you are presenting to people—to the point of confidence and comfort, not insecurity—can be what allows you to forget what you look like. Like leaving the Garden of Eden and re-entering through the back.

For Bowie, this was all after a couple false starts at being himself in the form of twoself-titled albums. He sang of local legends and crumbling ideologies before becoming his own cast of characters. In a 2002 interview, Bowie described Ziggy as a response to the posturing he noticed in so many rock stars striving to appear authentic: Their effortless-looking denim was not, in fact, any less performative than his own makeup and sequins. As Durga Chew-Bose wrote, a candid photo is a con. But for all his irreverence, sense of irony, and postmodern commentary, a lyric like, “Oh no love, you’re not alone…I’ve had my share, I’ll help you with the pain,” is still overwhelmingly comforting. Ziggy goes from a spectacle to a friend.

Bowie lifted from everywhere and everyone, citing influences like Little Richard, Kraftwerk, Jean Genet, Lou Reed, Kabuki theater, Charles Baudelaire, Elvis Presley, and Edith Piaf. His album Hunky Dory includes tributes to Bob Dylan and Andy Warhol, and when Bowie went to New York City in 1971, he visited the Factory to serenade Warhol himself. When asked in 1976 if he thought of himself as an “original thinker,” he replied, instead, “a tasteful thief.” From that same interview: “The point is to grow into the person you grow into. I haven’t a clue where I’m gonna be in a year. A raving nut, a flower child or a dictator, some kind of reverend–I don’t know. That’s what keeps me from getting bored.” Why not be your own source of entertainment, your own rock idol, your own mad genius film director? He thought of his albums as films, and his identity as a performer closer to that of an actor than of a rock star. Acting isn’t a one-way exchange: To deliver a “real” performance, you have to sustain your own disbelief and take what’s in front of you, in all its orchestration, as primed for a genuine human connection to take place. Have you seen the “Life on Mars” video? No one has ever believed in anything more than David Bowie believes, when he first sings to camera, smirking with his awful teeth and aquamarine eye makeup, that he’s about to change the world and watch it eat his stardust.

I am not trying to pull some annoying, stoner “time is a circle” shit on you. My fascination spins out from the rapid changes that have taken place in my life, the frequent shifting of gears, and the dysphoria of stumbling upon the site of a past catharsis and seeing it’s just a room, a street corner; the physical world, after all. It’s then that I know that the only way it could feel this anticlimactic now is if it did indeed happen to another person, in another life. “We create so many circles on this straight line we’re told we’re traveling,” Bowie said in a 2002 interview about his album Heathen. “The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.” Along the way, so many punctums: a transformative article of clothing, new style of handwriting, poster on your wall, favorite song. They’re not mere obsessions, and it’s never “just a phase.”

Most recently, in the album released on his 69th birthday and two days before his death, David Bowie became a Blackstar. The term was coined in a 2013 Scientific American article as a theoretical alternative to the density of a black hole. Instead of a never-ending nothingness, a quantum effect produces a Bowie. We earthlings continue to find traces of ourselves in his infinite everything.

This month, we want to see your reflections on…reflections, mirrors, photos, appearances, your image, the looks of things. We want to celebrate how good it feels to take a selfie that you’re happy with because it looks like you, and to wear an outfit that feels completely unlike you, and lots more to be found on our Submit page.

I, like many, have been having a difficult time since the announcement of David Bowie’s death. When I first learned of his passing, I felt a tightening in my chest and shock spread through me. I was surprised because I had never reacted like this to someone in the limelight passing. But, and it may sound cheesy, I realized that David wasn’t just “someone in the limelight”- he was a lot more, and his affect on so many people in this world has been very significant and has made so many feel at peace with who they are. The point is, I’m writing all this because even though this is about this month’s theme, Tavi’s words about David and his ability to recognize the changes he experienced that overall made up who he was, is so beautifully written. It is probably the best writing on David since his passing that I’ve read so far, as it captures the quintessence of him so perfectly and what he offered to so many through his music. So thank you for that, and I look forward to seeing all to come this month.

Your Joanna Newson reference reminds me of Lordes album; it ends with “people are talking, let em talk” and starts with “dont you think that its boring how people talk”. Beautiful words Tavi. Life’s a spiral, man… Going round and round but never coming back to the same place. I hate to say Ive never been into Bowie’s music but those interview quotes have got me hella intrigued… Time for some googlin’

This is a very beautiful article. As you can tell from my username, I am a huge Bowie fan. It was a strange grieving experience. I had to keep repeating to myself that he isn’t dead. I’ll still whisper to myself “He’s not dead, He can’t be” for no reason at all. Or I’d cry and dance to a really happy song like Drive In Saturday. Really helpful article.